Ephesians 2:19-22 functions as a conclusion to all that Paul addressed from the beginning of this letter to this point. If you take a few moments to look at Ephesians in your Bible, you will notice a string of “therefore,” and “for this reason.”[1] Paul wrote as a literary craftsman building argument upon argument, transition upon transition, and conclusion upon conclusion.[2] As we shall see in the coming weeks in the commentary on Ephesians 3, this section of Ephesians 2:19-22 serves as the introduction to the next major section of the letter, a section that continues to build upon what has occurred between Jew and Gentile in the Messiah.
Noel Brooks referred to the “Now, therefore” of 2:19 as Paul bringing to conclusion “the great theme of ‘the new creation.’”[3] Remember we have seen three of the five “heavenly places” references thus far in the letter. They are important parts of discerning the divine origin of redemption. The resurrection of Jesus in 1:20, 21, and especially the results of the victory of Jesus described in 1:22, 23, provides the basis for the giving of life to those “who were dead in trespasses and sins” (2:1). Through the Messiah’s victory, which is a manifestation of God’s riches in mercy rooted in His indescribable love (2:4), we are now spiritually “seated with Christ in the heavenly places.”
The Messiah’s victory is more than individual salvation. It is cosmic in nature and manifest itself in the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile through the church as evidence of God’s redemptive plan to the world. Because Jesus has “abolished in His flesh the enmity” and has put “to death the enmity” (2:15, 16), the reality of Shalom, peaceful reconciliation, has occurred between humanity and God and between Jew and Gentile, and between all who are ensnared in the various forms of “enmity” that Satan perpetrates on the earth.[4]
Satan’s realm on earth through the Fall in Genesis 3 is described by Paul as the realm of “principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named” (1:21). It is the realm of “the course of this world,” and “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (2:2).
But God has not abandoned this lost world but has repeatedly intervened to announce deliverance. We find this intervention described in the Old Testament even before the faith of Abraham. But it is primarily through the history of Israel, the patriarchs, prophets, and kings, that the promise of the Messiah is proclaimed. Now that the Messiah has come in the person of the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, a new kingdom of Jews and Gentiles is being formed over, against, and in the midst of darkness.
In Ephesians 2:19-23 Paul used several metaphors that relate to this “kingdom” which God has initiated from the foundation of the world. Just like Paul’s first century readers, we also comprehend the language as describing aspects of an entity composed of people who have gathered in one cause and existing in a unity the world does not comprehend.
The first metaphor is that of “strangers and foreigners” (2:19). The word “strangers” in Greek is xenos. Brooks defined this word as “a foreigner in transit, like a tourist.”[5] We are more accustomed to hearing this word in the negative as xenophobia, fear of a stranger. The stranger is not known to us. The stranger may look different from us and may speak a different language. The word “foreigners” is paroikos and speaks of someone who today is called “a resident alien, who dwells in a foreign land and pays taxes, but has no citizen rights.”[6]
Paul’s use of “now, then, you are no longer” at the beginning of this verse emphasized that those who are redeemed by Christ are no longer counted as strangers and foreigners to God and to one another! In Christ we have become “fellow citizens,” that is, people who share in the rights and privileges of belonging to a new identity. Once we did not belong and our identity and origin were questioned. Now, in Christ, we do belong and our origin and identity are in Him.
This new origin and identity make us one “with the saints and members of the household of God” (2:19). Thus, the second and third metaphors, fellow citizens and saints, flow together to bring us a unity found only in Messiah Jesus.
This kingdom does not have borders of oceans, rivers, mountains, or artificial lines on a Google map. But it does have boundaries. To be a citizen of this kingdom is to enter through the blood of the Messiah. As Jesus said of Himself in John 10:7, “I am the door.” Citizenship in this kingdom is not by natural birth but by spiritual birth (John 3:3). Citizenship in this kingdom has privileges and responsibilities. It is not a democracy where we choose our own path. It is a kingdom with a king, The King. In this kingdom we serve His will above all other expressions of will, whether self-will, the will of cultural influence, or the will to power. In Ephesians 4-6 Paul delineated the borders of this kingdom and how “fellow citizens” relate to one another and those in the world. In this kingdom we are united “with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19).
I take the saints to be a two-fold reference. First, it applies to all from Genesis 3 onward who have been faithful to obey through faith: Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and multiplied millions more. But secondly it refers to Jew and Gentile who have turned to the Messiah and now are saints, holy, in Him. We are part of this identity. We are saints because we are in Christ. In Christ we are in the household of God. Notice that the metaphors have shifted from a kingdom dimension to focus more attentively on that of a home, a family. In Christ we are brothers and sisters with one another through the blood of Jesus.
The metaphor of a home continued in 2:20. Using imagery that everyone understands, Paul refers first to a home’s foundation. He is not writing about a physical church building; rather, Paul is writing about the spiritual reality in which we live in Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together describes the false ways that we try to create spiritual unity. It is an important read and I encourage you to take the time to carefully read this book.
This is why the foundation begins with Christ as the chief cornerstone. Everything else about a house is based on alignment with Christ. If the house is not built on that alignment, then it cannot sustain itself against the effects of storms and time. With the Messiah as the chief cornerstone, the remainder of the foundation is built upon the apostles and prophets.
There is much interpretive debate regarding the apostles and prophets. Paul used the same phrase in Ephesians 3:5 and refers to apostles and prophets again in Ephesians 4:11. It is clear from the usage in those two passages that Paul had in mind apostles and prophets that were contemporaneous to him.
In my view we should not attempt to be too restrictive on what Paul means by naming these two kinds of called people in Ephesians 2:20 and 3:5. He may indeed be thinking that the foundation is composed of the first century apostles, the Old Testament and New Testament prophets, whose witness is about the chief cornerstone, Jesus the Messiah. That does not mean that Paul intended for those callings to end in his lifetime or at the close of the first century. Paul expected these gifts to be operative while the body of Christ exists on earth.[7]
But notice that the metaphor shifts again. This time the metaphor becomes not only a household but becomes “a holy temple in the Lord” (2:21). The foundation of apostolic preaching and faithful prophetic declaration of the Word of God produces something more than sentimental feelings of Christian brotherhood. The preaching of the apostolic Word, joined with the work of the Holy Spirit among the redeemed, becomes a presence on earth of Jesus Himself. We, not bricks and stones, we are the Body where God dwells with us “in the Spirit” (2:22).
Notice that Paul used a present passive tense for “being built together” in 2:22. The building of the Messiah’s Body, which is the place where God dwells, is an ongoing project generation after generation. But it is something not accomplished by human will or effort but by the presence of the Word and Spirit.
Remember in 1 Corinthians 3:16 Paul used similar language as in our portion of Ephesians, “Do you (plural) not know that you (plural) are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you (plural)?” Clearly it has a personal application. But the focus is that it is the people of God together, growing in the knowledge of Christ, who become the place where redeeming grace is made manifest to the world.
[1] Throughout this study I am using the New King James as the primary text. Other translations or paraphrases will use other English words to convey the same meanings.” When we read a “therefore” or similar phrase it is always good to read the previous verses to gain the point the apostle is making in this letter.
[2] As I mentioned in an earlier essay, it is often valuable to read Paul’s letter, in fact the entire Bible, without reference to chapter and verse divisions. The flow of Paul’s letters is easier to understand when read as one would read a personal letter from a cherished friend or spouse.
[3] Brooks, Ephesians: Outlined and Unfolded, p. 91. See the earlier essays for the bibliographical information for this book.
[4] Paul used ekklesia, “church,” in 1:22. He used it 8 more times beginning in Ephesians 3 and primarily in Ephesians 5.
[5] Brooks, op.cit., p. 92.
[6] Brooks, op. cit., p. 92.
[7] I will write more about apostles and prophets when we examine Ephesians 4:11.
